P'Gell, if you have not opened that closet in two years and cannot remember what is there, the you should get rid of the contents, because you don't need those items as much as you need the space.

I know how difficult this is; I periodically cull books from my shelves and give them to my students or a library; the rest I give to a used-book dealer. It is painful, but liberating.

May I make a suggestion? Set a date and a time limit for the two of you to empty that closet. Make the task a game of speed and skill. Your only goals are to empty it within the time, and make sure that no valuable documents are thrown away.

When the closet space is available, the piles will migrate to their new home! Have fun. less

I recently had someone help me clean out a closet that, like yours, hadn't been touched in several years.

The rule was that if it was a piece of paper, that I would look it over before it was thrown away--and it would be asked of me right then and there. I found that if I waited to go through them, I'd just leave them in an "I'll get to that later," pile for ages, so I paused and looked at it, and said to keep or toss, and then kept going.

All bags, etc., were gone through before being tossed in case there was something important in them.

Just a thought less

LOL exactly!

I have a frame that has this poem in it:

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rock-a-bye, Lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek-peek-a-boo).
The shopping is not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the yard there is a hullabaloo.
But I'm playing "Kanga" and this is my "Roo."
Look! Aren't his eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rock-a-bye, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
For children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep. less

LOL exactly!

I have a frame that has this poem in it:

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rock-a-bye, Lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek-peek-a-boo).
The shopping is not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the yard there is a hullabaloo.
But I'm playing "Kanga" and this is my "Roo."
Look! Aren't his eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rock-a-bye, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
For children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep. less

Often, when I think of my housekeeping abilities, I think of a Roseanne episode where Dan is trying to get the kids to pick up the house before Roseanne gets home:

"Remember, we're only going for the 'illusion' of clean."

I tend to pile things by categories and go through it later. (My clutter rotates.) I leave things out and ready to use at my whim, but I vacuum and dust regularly and keep up with the bathrooms, etc. If I know I have company coming, I'll marathon clean for two days so everything's shiny. That's the point that said clutter gets moved into a room behind a closed door, only to be retrieved upon said company's departure.

It's my system and it works for me. Just call first. :p ~ Arms less

Often, when I think of my housekeeping abilities, I think of a Roseanne episode where Dan is trying to get the kids to pick up the house before Roseanne gets home:

"Remember, we're only going for the 'illusion' of clean."

I tend to pile things by categories and go through it later. (My clutter rotates.) I leave things out and ready to use at my whim, but I vacuum and dust regularly and keep up with the bathrooms, etc. If I know I have company coming, I'll marathon clean for two days so everything's shiny. That's the point that said clutter gets moved into a room behind a closed door, only to be retrieved upon said company's departure.

It's my system and it works for me. Just call first. :p ~ Arms less

As with most things I am kind of a split personality when it comes to cleaning. By nature I'm a pretty messy person. I'm kind of scattered and that shows in my house. BUT I have a tendency to have bursts of obsessiveness where I run around cleaning everything and I get a bit twitchy when things are then messed up.

I'm also not comfortable with my messiness. I see it as a fault and I get very embarrassed if people see my messes and will nervously clean when people are here. I often think my house is worse than it really is.

It's cluttered, I have way too much stuff and not nearly enough places to put it. I have three kids, a full time job and spend way too much time online LOL... so I do what I can but it's very rare that my house is spotless! less

So, no one lives in the woods in a tent?

My Man and I (with some help from the kids) got the house fairly clean for Christmas. We have Christmas and New Year's Eve at our house and although there are pockets of clutter it looked good.

Now, the kids are back to just throwing things everywhere. I am torn between really wanting to keep the place beautiful and being one of those mothers and wives who screech at people for not taking off their shoes, not using coasters, leaving things lying around etc. Or being a martyr who just "does it all" and sighs audibly while resenting every thing. I would NEVER do the martyr thing and I don't want to be the Fish Wife, either.

A woman once said, "Trying to clean the house while children are growing up is like shoveling during a blizzard."

Did I mention my MIL (when she was here for the winter) used to actually go out in blizzards to "keep up with the mess." My Man does the same thing and it drives me crazy. He rushed me through SEX the last time in the morning we got an overnight blizzard because "I have to get out there and shovel." OMG. less